WHISPERS OF MY UTOPIA: I'M FASCINATED BY PEOPLE AND THEIR BEHAVIOURS

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Monthly Archives: November 2014

Last evening I got frantic calls and WhatsApp messages from erstwhile primary schoolmates and friends, over a dude who was arraigned in court for a shameful act. He was among the guys netted by the newly established anti-stripping squad. He is a guy from my neighbouring village back at home. Mishack Mburu is his name, has no sisters but two elder brothers, basically he is from a family of rogue and miscreant bad boys. One of his brothers was my classmate in lower primary classes, and he was involved in numerous theft cases, same case with their first born. Mishack did not grow up with sisters, perhaps the reason he did what he did since he has never related with them anyway! But that’s a naïve excuse and no justification whatsoever. He has a mother, and at one time she was the age of the lady, him and his accomplices molested.

Mishack a below average pupil back then , had an aggrandized physique compared to his peers, witty, mischievous and a bully by birth. His father used to work in the city and occasionally would pay them a visit. They would flaunt to us, gifts their dad brought them. Mishack and his brothers had a larger than life lifestyle, flamboyance was their mantra. They had lots of money and boosted of being relatively “exposed” than us. They were involved in so many criminal scandals until we lost count. They were kleptomanias and notorious delinquents. They were known for all the wrong reasons.

Incidentally, a friend forwarded me the Githurai clip where five to six men, sexually assaulted a lady in the name of ‘indecency dressing.’ I have never been more traumatised, am not kidding or rather sounding vague. I deleted it immediately. I got an instant headache; I could not believe this was happening in my country. For a second I hated all men and being a man too. I was too ashamed to be associated with men. One of these villains had a ring, presumably, he is married, but I think to a she – goat. He can’t be married to a human being and do those barbaric acts. The said guy was ostensibly the driver of the infamous bus, dressed in a navy blue blazer and a sky blue shirt. Shame on him! And his evil friends.

To you who is forwarding these clips, you are not any better, sorry to say. I deleted mine immediately since my conscious felt betrayed. If I stored it somewhere safe for ‘future reference’ would have been an endorsement to these men from hell. Forwarding it would have been a sign of affirmation and jubilation. Imagine your naked photos doing round? Is it not more painful than the initial act? Nobody should watch that video clip courtesy of you, at least make that vow. It will be a step in containing the trauma and making a bold statement. That we are tired and sick of women being projected as sexual tools by half-baked men full of esteem issues.

The poor lady is somebody’s adored daughter, cherished sister, winsome girlfriend, endearing niece and treasured friend. The hard reality is, her life will never be the same again. Do not be surprised if from now henceforth, she will hate all men. She feels rebuffed and her irreplaceable innocence taken away. Nobody prepared her for this, neither did she contemplate such an atrocious act would ever happen to her. This is a person who can easily commit suicide if she doesn’t get the counseling she badly needs. Somebody asked who takes care of the sexually assaulted women? I now believe the world is coming to an end, please repent your sins; somebody shout preach! Yes I feel like preaching already.

November is my birthday month and this is such a dissenting one. If it’s not nanny from hell, physically abusing the employer’s kid, its rogue pedophile uncles defiling their niece. On behalf of civilised men in Kenya, I take this opportunity to apologise to all women. Am well aware you sometimes wonder what goes through a man’s mind. Let me put the record straight, we have men who revere the female gender and will risk all we have to protect you. To you scoundrel men, you’ll pay your sins dearly here on earth or worse still, in hell. A woman is a beautiful gift to man and should be upheld, cherished and taken care of. I hope December will bring propitious news. Have a safe week.

Listening to one of the morning shows on radio, Dj Adrian, a resident ‘mix master’ in that media house quipped, “How long would be the distance from the beaches along the Indian Ocean, for one to be assumed she has crossed the red line of decency?” In one of the recent articles I penned down, I noted that Dead Beat Facebook page would die fast as it sprouted. We are in a fast moving world shrouded with many negative stories, ironically having everything to do with a besieged man and his sinking patriarchy ship, ponder how we forgot about Kanyari and his dirty tricks. Anyway, legions might be wondering why I am connecting issues to do with men who have refused to take responsibility after siring kids, to stripping. They are quite related. Here we are dealing with a wounded lion, and untamed for that matter, a man who has esteem issues not necessarily through his faults and in an identity crisis. A 21st century man growing in Kenya is dealing on a day to day basis with an over empowered urban woman, educated, well aware of her rights, fiercely ambitious and vibrant to the bone. Normally, when you are cornered, you cry foul. Unfortunately your crying may never be receptive to a lay man/woman. This is where psychiatrists come in. Before I proceed, don’t misquote me, I will say it for the hundredth time, any form of assault to a woman is wrong. People who study human behaviours may understand this signs and they might have seen it coming. How I wish, I would get an interpretation from Chris Hart, a pundit in this industry.

It’s always easy to point fingers at others, overlooking the plank in our eyes; its human nature. Nobody appointed busy bodies in bus terminus to be our moral police; in any case they are the first victims of whatever moral advocacy they purport to uphold. They say empty ‘debes’ make the loudest noise, I can’t agree more. We are confronted by belligerent delinquents imagining they can be the panacea to all our moral decadence, oblivious that they have insecurities to deal with. If every employable Kenyan was gainfully employed, we couldn’t be grappling with these primitive acts. Idleness is the source of all evil; with the number of unemployed youths bulging further every day, nothing could be further from the truth, the future is brink as far as our moral compass is concerned. Chivalry is dead or so it seems!

Why is the contemporary man different from our fathers and grandfathers era? What defined a man then and now, has significantly changed. In a lengthy article in the Atlantic titled The End of Man, Hanna Rosin notes the post industrial economy is indifferent to the attributes that used to give man advantage: size and strength. The attributes that are most important today are brain power, social intelligence, communication, and the ability to sit still and focus. Size and strength is catered for by robots and machines where man can no longer compete. Unfortunately these attributes named above, only favour the literate but the reverse is not true, that’s the spanner. What I mean is, chances are, a well-educated chap is more likely to be civilised than an uneducated one. Let’s zoom in to where these heinous acts take place, in bus terminus. We know who runs the show in these places with all due respect to hardworking men and women, presumably breadwinners to many families; who wake up in the wee hours of the morning to make a living in the matatu industry. In a nutshell, there is a clear correlation between level of education in tandem to opportunities that comes along with it AND one’s behavior. As a country we share the blame, our economy at the moment can’t absorb all of us. Government has its share of blame too, but we can’t sit back and imagine we do not have a role to play.

Women wear less for different reasons; some do it for personal branding, others just like it when men ogle and drool at them, some will show more skin deliberately to manipulate a man’s mind. Nevertheless, that doesn’t justify, neither warrant a man to lay his hands on a woman in the name of upholding morality. In any case, that man who shamelessly manhandles a woman is more likely to rape her or be suffering from wife batter syndrome since none of the acts involves respect. The writing is on the wall, the chickens are coming home to roast; women (ladies) are being projected as sexual tools. We might have been bombarded by much negative news as a generation, but thou shall not cave in to this level of primitivism.